[mythtv-users] 2021: Good cheap frontends for sports?

John Pilkington johnpilk222 at gmail.com
Fri Jan 29 10:44:47 UTC 2021


On 29/01/2021 09:21, Paul Gardiner wrote:
> On 28/01/2021 02:26, Tom Harris wrote:
>> On Wed, Jan 27, 2021 at 9:38 AM Josh Rosenberg <mythtv at desh.info 
>> <mailto:mythtv at desh.info>> wrote:
>>
>>     Hey, all. My Zotac ZBOX-ID84 that I bought used 4 years ago might be
>>     biting the dust, so it's time for a new frontend again. Since I
>>     watch a fair bit of sports, I don't think Raspberry Pi or the
>>     Android-based frontends give quite the oomph I need for 720p/1080i
>>     sports, let alone higher quality. (See my previous thread at
>>     https://lists.archive.carbon60.com/mythtv/users/626703
>>     <https://lists.archive.carbon60.com/mythtv/users/626703> .)
>>
>>     My instinct is to buy another ZBox and use VDPAU again, but I
>>     haven't kept up on the latest developments with VAAPI or NVDEC. From
>>     a quick search, it seems like buying hardware with a plan to use
>>     VDPAU might not be the best option in 2021. Does anyone have any
>>     specific suggestions for something that's Zbox sized or smaller and
>>     would make a good frontend for a sports fan in this day and age?
>>
>>
>> I also had a Zotac Ion frontend that I used for years with VDPAU.  It 
>> was very good, but crapped out on me.   I tried a few alternatives, 
>> including the Pi 3, which was pretty good but had noticeable judder on 
>> sports panning views.
>>
>> I ended up with the Nvidia Shield Pro -- the version that was updated 
>> last year, and I find it to be excellent.  Using the Mythfrontend app, 
>> it's very snappy and has excellent video playback.  My perception is 
>> that it's as good as the Zotac, but without comparing side by side 
>> it's hard to say 100%.  Much of my viewing is HD sports, and I have no 
>> problems with the Shield.  Also, the Shield gives you access to all 
>> the streaming apps (Netflix, Prime Video, HBO, etc.) which makes it 
>> the ultimate frontend in my opinion.
> 
> I'm interested in the Shield, not so much for mythfrontend (I have that 
> covered), but for Amazon Prime, Netflix and iPlayer. I have a fairly new 
> Fire Stick 4K, but it's terrible for frame rate matching. It's 
> shockingly bad. I have to make the "Match original frame rate" setting 
> every time I turn it on, and also if I power cycle just my AVReceiver. 
> Worse, the Netflix and iPlayer apps don't respond to the setting, so I 
> have to use the special engineer's menu to find the right rate before 
> entering the app. It's probably not affecting most people because modern 
> TVs have all sorts of horrible smoothing algorithms that can hide this, 
> although at a price of making some video motion look artificial. I'm 
> wondering how the Shield fares for frame rate matching.
> 

My Firestick 4K appears to retain its 'match frame rate' setting, and 
both leanfront and mythfrontend announce that they are using 50 fps when 
playing material from my DVB-T/T2 channels.  I haven't used streaming 
services much.

The clip that you uploaded recently was mp4 1440x1088 with a video data 
rate of  9998 kb/s, significantly higher than my old 1920x1080 
recordings of similar material.  leanfront on the firestick wasn't as 
clean as UPnP, but not distressingly so.

Quite a lot of my recent recordings have been from the SkyArts channel, 
544x576 progressive mpeg2video.  Some have rapid action scenes, but they 
still give pleasing playback at a video data rate around an eighth of 
that in your clip...

Now back to framerate matching and the really hawk-eyed watching... :-)

John P


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